


An itch you can never scratch

by Leu (Karaii)



Series: Naruto rarepair generator [9]
Category: Naruto
Genre: F/F, Third Shinobi War
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-07
Updated: 2020-05-07
Packaged: 2021-03-02 20:55:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 853
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24063196
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Karaii/pseuds/Leu
Summary: “Don’t get any ideas,” the stranger says. “This is to keep you warm.”Huh, Tsume thinks groggily. What ideas?...Oh. Those kinds of ideas.
Series: Naruto rarepair generator [9]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1372372
Comments: 10
Kudos: 17





	An itch you can never scratch

**Author's Note:**

> For the prompt Tsume & Konan.
> 
> It was fun trying to figure out how I'd stick them in a fic together, but I kinda really dig the outcome? A forgotten moment in the middle of the Third Shinobi War.

“That headband…” the oddly-robed stranger lowers her outstretched hand. “You’re from Leaf, aren’t you?”

Tsume has a gut wound, Kuromaru has lost an eye, and they’re both growling, froth lost to the water.

“What’s it to you, bitch?” Tsume spits. If they are to die, she thinks, then they will die proud of the leaf on their forehead.

The stranger’s nose wrinkles, then her expression smoothens out. “I knew a Leaf shinobi once.” She loosens her posture. “He did not kill us, then. So I will not kill you now.”

That’s what Tsume thinks she hears, anyway. Her vision fades to black. The last thing she thinks is, who the hell wears paper flowers in their hair?

–

Tsume dreams of the smell of wet dog and moist earth, of the iron of blood, and, inexplicably, the acrid stench of toad-skin.

–

“Hey,” says a voice that smells of paper and glue. “You can’t die. Sensei would be so disappointed.”

Fuck you, Tsume thinks. You can’t tell me what to do.

–

It’s too hot. Everything smells of sick and blood. “Why are you helping me?” The room is spinning. Her head is spinning. All of her is a spiral, draining into a void. Is this what dying feels like?

“Don’t speak,” the stranger says. She’s rid herself of that ugly cloak and her breasts are bound with gauze. Her arms are bare. There’s a soft blue fuzz growing there, like that of a newborn pup.

Tsume can’t help but to reach out to touch it.

“Stop moving,” the stranger says.

“Fuck you,” Tsume says. “You can’t tell me what to do.”

The stranger sighs, and does something to the wound. Tsume howls, and loses consciousness.

–

Kuromaru’s fur is rough and familiar against her. The stranger’s skin is not.

“Don’t get any ideas,” the stranger says. “This is to keep you warm.”

Huh, Tsume thinks. What ideas?

–

In the morning, the stranger is gone, but Kuromaru is not. He licks her gummy eyelids open, until she wakes up properly.

“Whuh?”

Someone has bandaged half of Kuromaru’s face with gauze. No…not someone.

“Where’s that bitch?” Tsume tries to move, and her whole body stiffens in pain. “Fuck!” It’s like that Rock bastard has stabbed her all over again. “Fuck, fuck!”

Kuromaru curls by her side and she muffles her screams against his fur. The pain passes.

“Fuck me,” Tsume groans.

“Hey, wolf girl.”

It’s that bitch again. She’s wearing that ugly cloak of hers, and Tsume thinks she looks like a woman drowning. She’d look better with her arms bare.

Oh, Tsume realizes. _Those_ sorts of ideas.

“Your Leaf friends are coming,” she says. “So I’m leaving.”

Wait, what?

“Goodbye,” she says.

“You bitch!” Tsume howls. “You can’t leave me here like this!”

Her screams are lost to the rain. There’s only the faint smell of wet paper and blood to prove the stranger’s existence. Kuromaru whimpers at her side, and Tsume feels ill again.

They spend that night alone.

–

The glint of metal wakes Tsume from her feverish stupor. It’s a silver-haired boy bearing a leaf headband, accompanied by a small pug and the smell of ozone.

“Sensei! I found them.”

Kuromaru barks, and Tsume looks up blearily. There’s a man with golden hair and blue eyes. What was his name again? Bastard…

“Inuzuka-san! You’re injured.”

“No shit,” Tsume manages, and faints.

–

It smells of toadskin again, and wet dog, and earth, and blood. And all the paper she smells is drenched with ink instead of glue. Why does she care about that? The world is spinning, nauseating, and she can’t think. Kuromaru can’t see. This war has crippled them.

–

They make it home somehow.

–

Inevitably, Tsume debriefs before the Hokage. Her whole team is dead, and she is alive, only two feet of intestines lighter than she was before.

“I don’t even know if she was a shinobi,” Tsume explains, frustrated. “She smelt of paper and glue and had a shit sense of humour. I don’t know.”

The Hokage nods, as if that makes any sense. Tsume is excused. She jumps at shadows for the next two weeks, expecting some ANBU fucker to try and off her for being a traitor, even though she’s not. Nothing happens.

Well, nothing except that she keeps dreaming of skin, warm against her own. It drives her up the wall, and it makes Kuromaru vicious, prone to biting friend and foe alike. What the fuck! What the fuck! It’s like having fleas and no limbs, an itch you can never scratch.

She scares some idiot into her bed just to drive away the memory, and does that again, and again, until she gives herself a yeast infection. A trip to the hospital and a urine sample later, she’s got a horrible surprise.

Nine months and two harrowing missions later, she has herself a clan heir. Who the fuck knows who the father was. It sure as hell wasn’t that papier-mâché smelling bitch.

–

Tsume names her firstborn Flower, and with that, the itch is gone.

(At least she didn’t name her Origami.)

–

Hana grows up to be a medic.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading :)


End file.
